


cynosure

by Rei_Rei (anti60ne)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 02:29:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anti60ne/pseuds/Rei_Rei





	cynosure

**genre:** general!au  
 **pairing:** Jongin/Luhan  
 **rating:** G  
 **word count:** 1081  
A/N: this is a sequel to _[shuttereyes](http://pyrrhication.livejournal.com/17105.html)_.

  


several weeks pass. winter has arrived, the city shivering under the biting cold, snow unmelted on windowsills and branches and the rims of jongin's exterior.

he has long lost count of the number of days since he began modeling, the moment since he started seeking aliveness through flashing cameras.

he never found it. not in the shutter.

but in the person behind it.

the possibility terrifies him.

\---

_"i want to get plastic surgery."_

_"what the fuck."_

_"my nose is not prominent enough. my cheeksbones aren't high enough. my jaw isn't sharp enough."_

_"why don't you think about what_ is _enough? the way you look is enough. your face is enough._ you _are enough."_

_jongin lets it sink in and his mind; having been shrunk in self-loathe for so long, he has trouble registering this. he remains skeptical, but he doesn't bring up the topic with luhan again._

\---

"you have this look. it's like a building could be falling on you and you would just stand there and not run away. not out of shock, but out of indifference."

jongin thinks about this. he doesn't deny. neither does he refute the way his heart thumps against his chest when luhan looks at him, eyes much, much softer than his own.

it begins to suffocate jongin, the way his core comes to life when luhan laughs, corners of his doe-like eyes crinkling; when luhan frowns in concentration as he screens and selects photographs scattered on the table; when luhan bustles around the studio, ruffling his hair carelessly as bare feet pad across cold tiles.

the way a large part of himself dies and resurrects at the same time when luhan looks at him, through him, past his body and into his soul.

jongin finds it all too much.

\---

eventually, the spotlight grows too bright for jongin. he misses the darkness that he used to live in, the cave of security that no one knows about. he misses being invisible, unseen, uncared for. people's fawning and feigned concern become a nuisance, a chore he has to attend to on a daily basis. he wants out.

what he doesn't realize, _yet_ , is that it's not the modeling world that he wants to flee from. it's because someone's presence in his life has grown herculean, overcasting his own disintegrating self-hatred, and he's not used to it.

"i want to quit."

luhan continues clicking through the array of photos on his mac. he doesn't, for a second, think jongin is actually being serious.

"i said," jongin reiterates, slightly peeved. "i want to quit."

luhan finally turns around in his chair. his face tells anything but bewildered surprise at the sudden announcement.

"what are you afraid of?"

"i'm not afraid of anything."

luhan sniggers. "yes, you are. everyone's afraid of something." _like i'm afraid of losing you._

jongin is silent. "i just don't like it. this... world of modeling," he changes the subject, and luhan is not surprised.

"what about it that you don't like?"

this is starting to sound like a therapy session, jongin muses, nose scrunched into fine folds.

"it's... too big. too loud. too bright. all the attention... it makes me anxious."

"do you remember what you said to me when you called to say you want in? you said," luhan answers his own question; it's supposed to be rhetorical. "that you wanted to belong." luhan pauses and watches jongin, and he can tell that the boy's thoughts are transporting him back to that morning, that phone call. "and now? do you no longer feel like you belong?"

jongin doesn't know the answer. he thinks yes, then he thinks no. but it can't be both, so maybe there is no answer.

or maybe, he has already found it, and buried it deep underneath frosted layers of consciousness.

denial is a stubborn thing, clinging to jongin like a perpetual shadow.

\---

"you know why i didn't push you to do runway? because i knew you'd hate it, even though you'd be perfect for it, i have to admit. i would never force you to do something you hate and that's not you."

"why do you know me so well when you barely know me?" the words stumble out too quickly that jongin has no chance of rectifying it.

"it's all in your eyes, jongin. eyes are the windows to one's soul, remember?"

the boy stares at luhan, his racing heartbeat rippling toward the windows of his dark eyes.

an unplesant sensation permeates his nose. his cheeks feel wet.

he's crying.

_stop,_ jongin screams inside his head. _stop it._

but when luhan takes his tear-stained face into warm hands, thumbs gently brushing away tumbling drops along his cheeks, an epiphany rams into jongin's heart, shattering it into smithereens of pulsing old selves.

the self-lies extinguish as he crumples into a breath-taking kiss and sturdy arms, and jongin wishes he knew those arms had been there since long ago, waiting to catch him.

and somehow, it's quite alright that air escapes his lungs through luhan's lips, infusing his lungs with titillating breaths.

it feels too strong, too real, and jongin doesn't come up unscathed.

\---

the irony is that jongin thought he would realize his self-worth in something he excels at, that he would come back to life once he is convinced that he's still around for a reason larger than his mind can comprehend. but when his entirety melts into pools of something that's not himself, he realizes how mistaken he was.

at the first sound of the shutter encaged in luhan's camera, the deep of jongin found something. the discovery so easily escaped his awareness that jongin continued to search, scavenging around and through and past the camera lens. his disregard for all the signs--pummeling heartbeat, raging blood, disconnected thoughts, simmering emotions--took on a recalcitrance that hid him in the dark and kept him there.

but the darkness cracks and the light that is luhan seeps in, slowly and imperceptibly at first, then quickly overtakes the cave of jongin's heart, filling it to the brink with something jongin never knew could survive in the stifling deadness that he had been familiar with.

and then unfamiliarity replaces familiarity, light substitutes darkness, and jongin is no longer himself.

luhan whites out the nonsensical scribbles on his canvas, and paints a new picture that jongin doesn't quite comprehend, but somehow _believes_ it should stay unmarred and unpolished.

_you have to die before you can come alive._   



End file.
